I'm Not There
by BlotOfInkOnFinger
Summary: Her eyes snapped open and she wrenched her arm out of his loose fingers. "Don't say it." she snarled, swerving away from him. Her breath came hitched now, "I didn't love Ron, I never did. Why would I? I loved," "I loved someone else." she muttered. HB


**I'm Not There**

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"**You do it yourself. You do, you and no one else".**

She watched as they took his body away, her eyes frozen on the spot where his blood lay in a puddle. Her eyes swerved to his retreating form, yet every movement and function for her brain to bring about seemed to last hours and hours. So slow, time had stopped. He had left the world in a state of disbelief, disarray and confusion. That's what everyone was whispering about, at least. But what could she comprehend, anyway?

Her feet were rooted to the same patch of grass she'd come to in search for him. Yet he was gone. The kindest, most noble, enigmatic yet completely open boy of _his _kind, had left. He'd left her, and everyone else.

"Potter, and I can't believe…" whispers generated through the air to her and for a moment, Harry's picture flashed in her mind, only moments ago fighting everyone's worst enemy. She wondered where he was, if he was alright but couldn't even care that she didn't give a shit about Harry or Ron anymore. _He _had left.

The sky turned grey slowly, and she heard the whole ground go silent , people cramped around her. She saw tears roll down Lavendar's cheeks. Why? Who else had been taken, she wondered in curiosity. But her thoughts returned again to him. All around her stood people, at every angle yet she didn't feel herself pushed or shoved, it was as if she was in her own bubble and everyone respected that. Of course, they probably knew her feelings for him.

A hand brushed against her back. "Hermione?" a tentative, hoarse voice crept up to her.

"Dean?" she repeated coldly. She didn't need to turn around to face him; She knew what he was probably going to say – how he didn't mean to hurl those hexes at him, how he couldn't believe at the the time that he'd joined their side.

"I..uh, they're…" his voice faded and she shut his pathetic feebleness out of her mind.

"Hermione." Harry croaked. She didn't feel like turning around. Voldemort had left, and _he _was gone. Couldn't he and Ron solve their problems alone for the fraction of a bloody second? She gritted her teeth and shrugged his hand off of her shoulder. Who cared? Who cared if that insecure idiot might be coming around again?

Wasn't she allowed any time for some bloody mourning?

"I understand it's a shock, but we need to get over it." Someone said very quietly.

"Get. Away. From, me." She snarled. A rush of adrenaline popped through her and she felt four brick walls breaking inside of her.

"So hurt. "

"No hope left…"

"He was so kind. Loved. "

"By everyone..loved by everyone."

"I feel so sorry for her, and him too."

"Look at her, standing there."

"Poor Hermione, she looks...just.."

"Devastated, I know. Who isn't?"

"Lavendar? I wonder…"

"He loved both."

Whispers, murmurs, mumbling sounds, Hermione couldn't push them out. They just came in contact with him in her mind, him sitting in the library that afternoon; him pushing her up against the wall, him turning away before their lips could meet, his large arms around her protectively, him not wanting to…what was the word? Violate her. How could he violate her when she was him? When they were one and one was everything?

The sky had turned a dreary colour of grey and light blue again, then Hermione felt water hitting her face. She turned around, slowly; finally.

A sea of people stood in front of her, everyone she knew, and didn't know. They were all looking at the sky, the floor, each other, some at her. Why? How had they known? She felt a strange sort of comfort inside of her; That these people actually cared about her, and hadn't turned their backs on her just because she'd fallen in love with a Slytherin – a well known one, in fact. Yet, how could they know what she was feeling? Only _he _had understood her. Not just because he'd "known her for ages" like Harry and Ron, but because they were _one. _

The rain came crushing down upon them, and everything else. She knew that this rain was there to swallow all the insignificant things in her life, and the sky was there to remind her of him.

"Hermione." She looked to her side and met Harry Potter's strikingly emerald eyes. She saw the sellotape round his black glasses and felt her guard break. She felt like the young, fresh little girl who had one day met her two future best friends, no, brothers, in that brightly coloured train for the first time.

Tears rolled down her cheeks only to be dried by the cloth on his chest as his body engulfed hers.

"I know," his voice broke, a small sob escaped." "He's gone, the..our..he was our _brother_." He whispered into her curls.

Suddenly, everything came to a halt.

"What?" she gasped, the rain trickling down her chin.

"He was. You know it." He leaned away from her a bit, looking at her with remorseful, troubled, and for the first time ever, old eyes.

"I…I…" she stuttered for words.

"Who are you talking about?" she asked shakily.

_When had Harry ever been Blaise's brother?_

"Hermione." He looked seriously into her eyes. "We have to accept it. He's gone. Ron is gone." And again his sob broke through her calm and she pushed him away.

Fury took over her.

So they didn't know. Of course they didn't.

These people didn't care, didn't bother to care that the one person she lived for, and lived for the sake of living and enjoying life instead of just saving the world's huge pathetic ass, was gone.

They weren't mourning his loss.

"Of course," she whispered.

Who cared if Blaise had died?

Who gave a shit?

He was just the Slytherin. Who cared if he was an absolute genius, guessing, _guessing _the inner workings of the greatest dark wizard's mind, with just a few lines on his temperament? Who cared if he was strong enough to lift a hippogriph onto another surface?

"I know you loved him."

Hermione's face turned into stone, and she shrugged every one of them off of her mind.

"You don't know anything."

He blinked.

"What?"

She didn't answer. She pushed past Harry and stormed to the middle of the ground. The thunder in the sky couldn't match the fiery, scowling, and wild woman who grasped everyone's attention just by her expression. There she stood, with the whole school's eyes on her. Her anger died right out of her eyes, and her pursed lips became fuller and normal again. They widened into a mischievous grin, and her brown eyes sparkled golden in the dim light.

It was there that she stood snickering, her nostrils flaring - every Slytherin trademark gracing her soft features. In silence, she slid the edge of her sleeve slowly up her pale white arm.

Black tendrils of ink were creeping up from her palm to her elbow, faded and grey, her white skin surrounding and underneath the empty areas was red, bright red, maroon and graying. The soreness, the destructive blackness which had enveloped her beautifully smooth, creamy skin made them flinch. Harry gasped and strode forward, his eyebrows raised in surprise but his eyes smoldering.

"Is that...is that what I think it is?"

She nodded, silently in agreement. A small remorseful, repentant smile on her face - her eyes narrowed slightly, completely crystal-clear. At that moment, all the masses of students scattering the vast Hogwarts grounds first gaped at the unpleasantly familiar pattern, then they were sucked out - they weren't able to move or feel as an earth shattering wave of shock hit them. They were momentarily stunned, and then remained that way.

Hermione Granger? The name ran through their minds as they remembered with ease the prudishness and the intellect, the practicality and warmth that accompanied the famous name.

But those memories and facts turned to glass and crashed as the image of the Dark Mark, in all of it's evil connotations and sinister look descended upon them.

She grimaced as she felt Harry's fingers run up her wounded, stained arm.

His eyes met her, his full of loathing and fear; Her of malice yet apology mingled in the brownness.

"You never knew," she whispered shakily, an inhalation of breath caught in her throat, a lump stuck somewhere there in the dangerous middle, "You never h-had to know. None of you. N-none of you cared about_ anything _to do with m-me," she paused, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

"You?" His voice was too stunned and shocked to even sound spiteful, condescending, " Who _are _you? You expected us to think _this? _What kind of _shit_ is that, Her -" he couldn't say it. Because now, she wasn't that girl.

Her eyes snapped open and she wrenched her arm out of his loose fingers. "Don't say it." she snarled, swerving away from. Her breath came hitched now, "I didn't love _Ron_, I never did. Why would I? I loved," The crowd was steadily backing up. Harry's squared shoulders, his hand gripping his wand as only McGonagall and a few others knew him to hold on to when facing Voldemort. "I loved someone else." she muttered bitterly.

"And none of you would have accepted that, because,"

It was as if she was spitting out the long suppressed venom in her mouth.

"You've _never _accepted anything from me. Not Krum, not the stupid cursed Half Blood Prince's book, only loving _Ron _ever had your attention."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it? It must be, if I had been madly in love with Blaise Zabini without the two of my, " she clenched her teeth at the word, "_Best _friends noticing anything except for their bloody own problems."

"Blaise?"

"Yes, Blaise. Didn't you notice? We were in _love. _And now he's dead, and I have to pretend that everyone's feeling all sad and shitty because secretly they _had _realised we were in love, but no," she was speaking feverishly fast now, "The idiots all think I was still freaking _Ron's _girl."

"And now, now you'll wonder _why _I've got this mark on my arm? Well, they were the only ones who _welcomed _change in me." Harry's wand shook in his hand. "They embraced me. B-but" Now tears rolled off her red cheeks. "It...didn't fit me. Blaise knew too. So we tried everything to get it off. I'd been reckless, stupid, and when my _best friends _should've noticed the tear tracks on my face during classes, and my hurried exits from the Great Hall, they were too busy snogging their girlfriends and, oh, also freaking out about stupid Voldemort, unable to do _anything _without _my _logic." she ended, her voice really high pitched and trembling.

She didn't wait for his reply, or retort - whichever of the two it was. She turned around, with her black coat sticking to her body, soaked and enveloping her small frame with black.

No one tried to stop her, to reason with her, to scream or yell at her. As she walked away, the crowd erupted into loud exclamation and yells. They cramped around Harry, demanding to understand how Gryffindor's Hermione Granger had turned into a _Death Eater_. No one cared to ask her why, for what reason, if it was her choice, _why, _they didn't care or bother to. She left trembling, as they all marveled and wondered and shook their heads in disappointment and _fear - _the _so called_ brave, brilliant Hermione Granger had succumbed to the Dark Lord, how were _they _to survive?

No one asked themselves how _she _would survive.

After all, her purpose was served - to leave them fearing for their precious lives.

After all, she was the example. Now they could forget her and worry about their next move.

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**A/N: **Ah, what a drabble. This is one of those times when you open up your Word page and just write whatever comes into your head, and then thoroughly unsatisfied, you decide to put it up as a "story" without any editing, just because of all that _frustration. _Ah, well. I don't know if I got the point across much, you tell me. By the way, songfiction of Just by Radiohead. God, what a phase that song has put me in.


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